S104 update, slightly revised study plan and playing with blog layout

S104 update

I always have a little break after doing a TMA, so had a break on Thursday away from OU stuff.  Friday starting reading Book 2 Chapter 3 and now on my second read of it.  Some quite devasting numbers coming through on the amounts of people killed in earthquakes and tsunami's.  And this is not including the Japanese earthquake/tsunami that occurred recently.  We are still quite a primitive civilisation in not being able to even predict these events, and it was only in the 1960s we 'discovered' tectonic plates so Earth Sciences has a long way to go yet.

Slighty revised study plan

Have revised my study plan very slightly (is this an indication I am getting closer to finding out what I want to do - you may ask lol), I think the level 3 courses shall be confirmed closer to the time as the OU are still thinking about revising the level 3 courses.  I just hope those of us starting our degree now don't get forgotten in the OU plans!  Else there will be a lot of disappointed people around:-

Playing with blog layout etc

I have changed the blog template to a nicer template, which I think is a lot better then the previous version.  I have also slightly rearranged the S104 notes sections on the top right hand side, so they are now split up into books, instead of one long page.  If anyone knows how to set up groups please let me know.  e.g. I would like a set of my posts to be under S104, then later another set under S282 - not just one long list of blog posts.

S104 update and playing with mind maps

S104 update

Facebook block is going well, having now extended it out a little bit so facebook is now blocked between 10am and 4pm.  Being a lot more productive.
Have now started Book 2 Earth and Space.  Finished chapter 1 and 2 today, along with a mind map for chapter 2 (chapter 1 was just an intro).  Also started doing the definitions for Book 2 on quizlet.  I did start out doing the post it notes with notes on for doing a similar note setup as my last chapter notes (chapter 8 book 1), but they seemed very unwieldly so decided to go back to doing mind maps again : - copy attached, I suspect you will need to click it to see the larger version....

Reasonably pleased with it as it looks a lot easier to review then just standard notes, so will try mind maps for now - I am still basing the mind map around the SQ3R method as you can see from the chapter headings being the first arcs in the 'tree'.

Taken another couple of days reading of the rain gauges - not as much rain in them as last week.

Would love to hear about your study techniques, e.g. to you do mind maps, notes, SQ3R - or some other technique I haven't heard of yet  - always on the look out to improve......